Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Laying Fiber Optics- Free Fish Habitat

They are laying Fiber Optics in our neighborhood and they were throwing away 3-8 foot lengths of HDPE 2 inch pipe- the orange stuff on big spools on the side of the road.. I grabbed it all and now have 400 3 -4 foot pieces and 250 8 foot lengths.

How many pieces of this pipe should I put in each half of a 5 gallon bucket of cement I mix? I don't want to make each bucket too dense.

Any suggestions on best what to build with all this pipe?

This will be used in a private 200 acre lake and has been approved by both the HOA as well as the DNR.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure!"

You have collected some really good stuff for fish structures.

I would suggest reading through some of the old threads in the Creating Habitat forum. (You can skip most of the irrelevant ones just by scanning the titles.)

Here is a link to a good thread.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=533961

Scroll down to FireIsHot's entry to see a few of the possible types of PVC trees.

There are MANY more good ideas in that forum!

Good luck on your giant 200 acre "pond"!

Tip: You don't need to fill the buckets completely with cement. Just makes them extremely heavy and hard to move around. Half, or maybe even less, is plenty.

-said a guy who learned from experience.


Also, the denser the better.

If you want a bass attractor-
Not very dense.
To protect little fishes- very dense

Cover all depths from surface to bottom if possible , group the structures together with a range of thickness. See this for ideas.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92463#Post92463

Thanks for all the feedback and I learned a lot by all the reading that was suggested and then building some test structures and trying to sink them



If you sink long pieces be sure to drill a few holes in the pipe every 3-6 feet. I found this out when we tried to launch "The Octopus Bucket " and it floated away.

This stuff has almost neutral buoyancy and does not need a large amount of weight to sink it ( thanks Omaha).

My wife saw me sinking this structure and then asked me to trim our trees in the yard before I continue "My New HOBBY". I now have 12 HUGE piles of brush sitting in my yard from the oaks I trimmed. I plan on sinking one artificial structure and then maybe 2 or three of these huge oak tree branches and then another artificial structure on the other end. Does this make sense or should I not mix artificial and tree/brush structure?


Has anyone ever made structure that moves with the current? I am asking because I drilled holes in the middle of 3 foot pieces of this pipe. I then took an eight foot piece of rope and every 8 inches I attached a piece of pipe and then tied a knot. I ended up with a tree-like structure that moves in the current. All the "branches" are the same 3 foot length and it is tide down with half a cinder block.

I also made another "moving tree" by drilling holes at the End of each pipe and tying it the same way- every 8 inches. Instead of the pipe laying horizontal, they lay vertical. I am sure the pipes will hit each other when there is a strong current, and would that scare away the fish? Is this moving structure a waste of time and should I stick to sinking them in cement?

Foodeefish,
Don’t add the oaks! Some members on this forum have had complete fish kills in their ponds. I know DD1 had that happen to him. Many have suggested using cedar as it will last longer and give better cover for your forage fish.

Dropped 5 dead spruce trees in my YP pond before the rain hit. Expecting an inch of rain todays which should bring the pond to full pool. I have not seen any ribbons for 3 years and thought maybe the YP want fresh brush as opposed to the older algae-covered stuff? Our many spruce trees are mostly dying from needle-cast.

Sounds like I will use the oak limbs for the fireplace. What about Hickory tree limbs as I do not have cedars ?

Has anyone ever made structure that flows with the water current? Is this something the fish would like or would it be too different a structure for them to use?

I have floated spruce trees and just let them sink where they may, or get lodged in shallow water. Is that what you mean?

Heppy is right. I found out the hard way that oaks have tanins that are lethal to fish. I had to pump the whole thing dry. Then let Texas summer really dry things out. Oh yeah, I also had to have a bonfire to really get rid of the oaks.

I have used oaks plenty of times and never a problem.
Dave (DD1) and I have talked about this many times and we don't know why the different results from place to place. I have not heard of Hickory being an issue.

ewest, did you use green oaks or dried oaks? I had an Oak top snap off and fall into a small pond (1/20th acre) and the water turned black and started to smell after a few days. I yanked it out as soon as I saw it. Luckily there was no fish kill, but even that tiny pond was aerated. It has FHM and PSK in it with some tadpoles and papershell craws.

I think that if it would have been in there longer some if not all fish would have died.

Both green and dry. Often from hurricane damage. Some very large oaks in one case went directly into the water (fell there). If you think it will be a problem add ag lime to offset the tannic acid (the cause of black water).

I have repeatedly fished a small pond (unaerated) in an oak forest. The water is always that clear brown/black color that I associate with high levels of humic acid. (I suspect it is mostly due to leaves decomposing rather than branches in the water.) The pond gets very little wind aeration because the oak trees crowd so closely to the edge that it is difficult to cast.

We have caught fair numbers of LMB and GSF (on bass lures). We never deliberately tried to sample the panfish population, so I have no idea what the forage population looks like. I never got to fish the pond enough to determine its "productivity". (I assume it has fairly low productivity due to significant tree shading, plus other factors.)

I took one buddy fishing at that pond, and he declared we would catch nothing once he saw the water. He then caught a 4# LMB on his second cast. (Which is pretty good for an unmanaged small pond in Kansas.)

Fish are darn tough critters - sometimes. They are also seemingly very fragile at other times.

I have absolutely NO IDEA what level must be exceeded of humic acid and tannins in the water to cause problems for the fish population!